GroupMe

My thanks to GroupMe for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. GroupMe is a new group messaging service, with a bunch of great features. The basic gist is that each “group” gets a unique phone number; texts sent to that number are distributed to the whole group. Anyone with any phone that supports SMS can be in a group.

Where it gets cool is with the brand-new iPhone app, developed by Cameron Hunt (Birdhouse) and Jeremy Schoenherr (MLB.com At Bat). It looks good, works well, and optionally allows you to use push messaging instead of SMS for sending and receiving. It’s easy to switch back and forth between push and SMS — but even when you’re using push, it all still works with every member of your group, no matter what kind of phone they’re using. (They’ve got apps for Android and BlackBerry, too.)

Sounds great for conferences, and GroupMe has that in mind: they’ve got a special promotion where if you’re heading to SXSW next week and set up a group for you and your friends, you’re entered in a contest to win “VIP tickets” to various parties. The service and the app are both free of charge.

★ Friday, 4 March 2011